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Fighting dogs and smart dogs

Life at my house has been absolutely miserable this week. There’s a coup in progress. It started because one of my girls — Billie — is in season. That normally disrupts things because everybody’s hormones go haywire. So, for several days I’ve had lovesick boys and I’ve been shuffling dogs around so nobody gets pregnant. (This is the price I pay for having intact dogs but I show my dogs and I have an occasional litter, so it goes with the territory.) So far, everything was normal. This happens about once a year and we live through it. However, this time there were a couple of differences. One, I have Blue and he’s now old enough to be interested in girls. And, two, Taylor is 12 and he’s not quite able to rule the house like he used to.

Now, I thought at first that Blue might be the strong young guy to take over and be in charge. He’s a huge boy. He’s much bigger than Taylor. But, I had not counted on Taylor’s younger brother, Beau. Beau is also a huge dog but he has always been the “little” brother. He’s let Taylor psych him out all his life. Suddenly, with Taylor getting older, Beau has seemed to realize that he doesn’t have to be second banana anymore. And that’s not a good thing.

Beau has been just impossible for the last three days. He has been stalking Blue. He’s been following Taylor around, threatening him with growls. He growls night and day. He is so worked up and mad. He acts like years of anger and frustration at Taylor are going to break loose. I’ve been crating him and making him take time-outs when he gets too bad. Beau is a sweet dog! He never acts this way. But he acts like he has got his chance to be head dog now and he’s going to get revenge.

I don’t let Billie or Pearl near the boys but I’m sure the hormones aren’t helping things. The entire household has been turned upside down because these boys are trying to work out who’s on top. They follow each other around growling and staring at each other. I just want it to be over!

Nobody has hurt anybody. There haven’t been any real fights. But they’re so noisy!!! They stay mad at each other all the time. It’s been very stressful here. I’m never having three boys again. Things will probably be all right again once it’s settled who’s in charge but right now it’s a mess. I’m nervous all the time because I’m afraid the dogs’ barking is going to bother the neighbors. I am so sleep-deprived! I hope the boys get this settled soon.

In other news, I saw an interesting piece online about the smartest dogs. It seems every few months or couple of years somebody else comes out with a new list of breeds that they claim are the smartest dogs. The problem is that they all use different criteria so the breeds are usually different. I know in the Stanley Cohen Book, The Intelligence of Dogs, it favored very biddable, trainable dogs. So, if you had stubborn or independent dogs they were considered essentially stupid. That made a lot of terrier people very unhappy. It didn’t make me very happy either. The Setters were rated more intelligent than average but I think it said that they had a tendency to tune the owner out when they didn’t want to listen. (Right now I think my dogs are idiots so this probably isn’t a good time to discuss this subject.)

This latest list, from PetMD, looks like this:

The World’s 10 Smartest Dogs (Supposedly)

10. Australian Cattle Dog

9. Rottweiler

8. Papillon

7. Labrador Retriever

6. Shetland Sheepdog

5. Doberman Pinscher

4. Golden Retriever

3. German Shepherd

2. Poodle

1. Border Collie

I have no idea how they came up with that list. I can’t see that those breeds have very much in common other than the fact that they’re all popular breeds. I’ve been told that the Chinese Shar Pei is one of the most intelligent breeds but I never see them on a list of intelligent dog breeds. The same is true for some other intelligent breeds.

Once again the Border Collie is the smartest breed. I’ve only known Border Collies in classes — conformation classes, obedience classes. I was always so focused on my own dogs that I never paid any attention to them. Are they really that smart? I know they are supposed to be super intelligent. I see them on TV competing in agility and other sports. I guess they must be very focused and easy to train. I will have to meet one sometime and see for myself.